


Afterlife

by YaeL (thesometimeswarrior)



Category: Jewish Legend & Lore, Jewish Scripture & Legend, Post-Biblical Jewish RPF, מדרש | Midrash, תלמוד | Talmud
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Ficlet, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Survivor Guilt, Teacher-Student Relationship, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-15 02:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18064709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/YaeL
Summary: Yohanan dreams of coffins.





	Afterlife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rebecca_selene](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebecca_selene/gifts).



> Hi! Chag Purim Sameach--Happy Purim!
> 
>  **@rebecca_selene** : I know you didn't specifically request stories from the Talmud, but you did request stories that were related to "Jewish Legend and Lore." You mentioned that you were just starting to become aquatinted with your Jewish heritage, and invited me to present any sort of introductions to Jewish Lore. I feel that a lot of the stories and legends recorded in the Talmud are just as important as the Hebrew Bible is--if not more important--to understanding modern Jewish religion, and yet, at least in the States, they're seldom taught outside of traditional backgrounds. And I wanted to maybe introduce you to one of those compelling stories here.
> 
> But, given what you wrote in your Dear Creator Letter, I also felt that this particular story was appropriate for you in particular. You mentioned that you enjoy hurt/comfort pieces, as well as post-apocalypse stories--both of which scratch particular fandom itches for me as well!--and the Talmud is just chalk-full of potential that fulfills that trope, and I tried to highlight that a little bit here.
> 
> This story should be comprehensible without a lot of context. That said, I'll include some links to the source material in the end note, in case you're interested in reading further. I really hope you enjoy!

Yohanan dreams of coffins, wakes up gasping, (or—there are those that say—screaming), closes his eyes against the residual claustrophobia before pacing outside to breathe the pre-dawn coastal air. 

It smells like salt. (He still smells smoke.)

(He’d never smelt it, seen it, in person. Had been smuggled out of the city _before_. But he’s seen it often enough in his mind’s eye—the bodies of the zealots with whom he’d once so vehemently disagreed lying in the streets, or else sold into slavery in Rome, the Holy Temple on fire, burning, burning to ashes, to _nothing_ …And, though it feels worlds and spheres away Yavne is not so far from Jerusalem. Smoky air carries.)

“Master.” 

Yohanan raises his head to see Eliezer and Yehoshua standing before him, both lit only by the flame in Yehoshua’s hand, tunics and hair whipping in the wind, both wild silhouettes against the blue-black sky.

(They’d stood—these beloved students—over him when he was in the coffin, helped him to lay down in it, borne him on their shoulders once he was inside…)

“Here, Master.” Eliezer extends a ceramic jug filled with cool water, which Yohanan grasps, and, after a word of thanks both to his pupil and then to the Almighty, drinks.

He hands the vessel back to his student, who nods deferentially and then turns on his heels, back toward his own dwelling. Eliezer senses, perhaps, the emotional state his teacher is in, and while he is devoted to serving him—to, for instance, bringing him water from the cistern—he would not dare risk shaming Yohanan by intruding into his emotional life. To do so would risk breaching the decorum that exists between teacher and student, a strict line that this one of his disciples is unwilling to cross.

“Go in peace, my son,” Yohanan murmurs. 

Eliezer nods again before disappearing into the darkness.

Yehoshua, though—slightly less concerned with this particular aspect of decorum outside the walls of the study hall—lingers. “Are you alright, Master?”

“I will be, come dawn.” A pause. A shaky breath. There are things, Yohanan reminds himself, that decorum expects of _him_ too. “Forgive me—I don’t mean to embarrass you.”

“You aren’t.”

A brief silence. Yohanan lowers himself on to ground—hears each one of his joints spittle and creak as he does so—and then his student follows suit.

“Did I do the right thing, Yehoshua?” It’s admittedly a vague question—the sort that he wouldn’t accept from a student were they within the study hall. But they’re not there now, and the sunken distance in his eyes specify the context of his question where his words do not.

“You did what you had to.”

“The zealots would say the same—”

“The zealots were fools!” Blood rushes Yehoshua’s cheeks as he realizes the tone in which he has just addressed, _interrupted_ his teacher. “Sorry, I…”

Yohanan holds up a hand. “It’s alright.”

“I only meant…if not for the zealots, we wouldn’t even be in this position, would we? We’d still be in Jerusalem, we’d still have the Temple, and—”

“We’d be under Roman control.”

“We’re under Roman control now! Except _now_ , the Holy of Holies is in ruin, all of Jerusalem is burnt to the ground, and it didn’t have to be this way! It’s like you said—we could have just paid taxes to the Romans, and they’d have more-or-less left us alone! But instead—”

“Instead we’re here.” Yohanan can’t bear to allow him to finish, can’t bear to have their situation elucidated in the frank details that Yehoshua’s rhetoric demands. 

“Well, yes!”

Yohanan sighs. “Still. I envy them.” 

“The Romans?”

“The zealots.” 

(It’s the sort of admission he can only make now, in the dead of night.)

“Because…” Once it seems to overcome the hurdle of his shock, his student’s voice is tentatively determined, as though attempting to conquer a particularly difficult legal derivation. “Because they didn’t live to see this?”

“Because when they died,” (or were captured, stolen—but Yohanan doesn’t remind Yehoshua of this), “they were fighting for Jerusalem and the Temple. While I…I _bargained_ with, _shook hands_ with the Roman Emperor. _Comforted_ him, prophesized for—”

“And _lived_ , Master. You lived. And because of you—”

“ _Did_ I?”

“I…what?”

“Did I truly survive, Yehoshua? You smuggled me out of Jerusalem in a _coffin_ —”

“We had to! The zealots wouldn’t let—”

“I know.” Yohanan lays a hand on his student’s shoulder. “And I’m grateful. But sometimes I think...Perhaps whoever emerged from the coffin is not the same man who laid down in it. Perhaps that man really did perish in Jerusalem.”

A pause. Yehoshua turns his eyes to the stars. The fire from the torch illuminates every line on his cheek, every crease on his forehead. Once, Yohanan thinks, only a few years ago, this aged disciple of his had been a young man.

“If...if that’s true, Master,” Yehoshua says, finally. “If you really did die in Jerusalem, then you also died for something. A higher purpose.”

“What’s that?”

“So that all of us—and our traditions—could survive the destruction.” He returns his eyes to Yohanan’s face, his voice hardly a whisper. “Master, we have to survive.”

In several hours, when the sun begins to rise and Yehoshua extinguishes his torch, Yohanan will dawn certainty with his phylacteries—wear it on his heart and between his eyes, as a sign on display for all to see. And they _will_ see it on him. As he prays in the synagogue. As he lectures in the study hall. As he hears legal cases in the religious court and debates rulings. 

He will seem certain. (He will have no choice.)

But here, now, as he sits with his student with only a single flame for light and the vast night all around them, the quiet quiver of his voice betrays an uncertainty, lending a sort of wry irony when he makes his reply. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Though this draws on stories about these three characters throughout the Talmud, this ficlet was specifically written in reference to the events surrounding Yohanan ben Zakkai's escape from Jerusalem, which can be found [here.](https://www.sefaria.org.il/Gittin.56a?lang=bi.) (About halfway down the page, beginning with: "§ The Gemara relates: Abba Sikkara was the leader of the zealots")
> 
> I really hope you enjoyed! I love comments!!


End file.
